VIDIX (video interface for *nix) is a

portable Portable may refer to: General * Portable building, a manufactured structure that is built off site and moved in upon completion of site and utility work * Portable classroom, a temporary building installed on the grounds of a school to provide ...

programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...

for

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating systems that allows video card drivers running in

user space A modern computer operating system usually segregates virtual memory into user space and kernel space. Primarily, this separation serves to provide memory protection and hardware protection from malicious or errant software behaviour. Kernel ...

to directly access the

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

through Direct Graphics Access extension to the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

History

Nick Kurshev, the author of VIDIX, writes that his motivation in creating the interface was to resolve the issue reported by Vladimir Dergachev in his RFC for an alternative kernel multimedia API: Dergachev noted that existing multimedia interfaces were hard-coded for each device, and suggested that driver developers would have more flexibility with a layer of abstraction. VIDIX was born as an alternative to the Linux kernel-based drivers from the

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...

project. For a long time, VIDIX lived within the MPlayer project; later, it lived within the MPlayerXP project, a fork of MPlayer by Kurshev. During that time,

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

and many other Unix-like operating systems lacked quality drivers for the video subsystems. Almost all of the technical documentation for video hardware was under non-disclosure agreements at the time, and many programmers had to code their drivers blindly. Other developers became interested in using VIDIX for their own players, and they asked Kurshev to separate it from the MPlayer project. VIDIX became an alternative set of device drivers, based on the idea of direct hardware access (similar to Microsoft's DirectX). These drivers mapped accelerated

video memory Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...

to avoid colour-space conversion and software

scaling Scaling may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics and physics * Scaling (geometry), a linear transformation that enlarges or diminishes objects * Scale invariance, a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energ ...

from the side of the players. The X Window System now includes the

Direct Rendering Infrastructure The Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is the framework comprising the modern Linux graphics stack which allows unprivileged user-space programs to issue commands to graphics hardware without conflicting with other programs. The main use ...

, which provides similar functionality with broad hardware support. Kurshev continued to develop VIDIX through 2007, when version 1.0.0 of the software was released.

Supported hardware

Trident Microsystems Trident Microsystems was a fabless semiconductor company that in the 1990s, it became a well-known supplier of integrated circuits (commonly called "chips") for video display controllers used in video cards and on motherboards for desktop PCs ...

Cyberblade/i1 * Hauppage PVR350 *

ATI Technologies ATI Technologies Inc. (commonly called ATI) was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technology Inc., ...

Mach64 and 3DRage chips * ATI Technologies Radeon and Rage128 chips: **

Radeon R100 The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a ...

chip series **

Radeon R200 The R200 is the second generation of GPUs used in Radeon graphics cards and developed by ATI Technologies. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Microsoft Direct3D 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3, a major improvement in features and performance ...

chip series **

Radeon R300 The R300 GPU, introduced in August 2002 and developed by ATI Technologies, is its third generation of GPU used in ''Radeon'' graphics cards. This GPU features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0, a major improvement in featur ...

chip series **

Radeon R420 The R420 GPU, developed by ATI Technologies, was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable graphics cards. Used first on the Radeon X800, the R420 was produced on a 0.13 micrometer (130 nm) low-''K'' photolithogr ...

chip series **

Radeon R520 The R520 (codenamed Fudo) is a graphics processing unit (GPU) developed by ATI Technologies and produced by TSMC. It was the first GPU produced using a 90 nm photolithography process. The R520 is the foundation for a line of DirectX 9.0c a ...

chip series *

Matrox Matrox Graphics, Inc. is a producer of video card components and equipment for personal computers and workstations. Based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada, it was founded in 1976 by Lorne Trottier and Branko Matić. The name is derived from "Ma" in Mat ...

MGA G200/G4x0/G5x0 chips *

Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

chips: **

RIVA 128 Released in August 1997 by Nvidia, the RIVA 128, or "NV3", was one of the first consumer graphics processing units to integrate 3D acceleration in addition to traditional 2D and video acceleration. Its name is an acronym for ''Real-time Interactiv ...

** RIVA TNT **

RIVA TNT2 The RIVA TNT2 is a graphics processing unit manufactured by Nvidia starting in early 1999. The chip is codenamed "NV5" because it is the 5th graphics chip design by Nvidia, succeeding the RIVA TNT (NV4). RIVA is an acronym for ''Real-time Intera ...

GeForce 256 The GeForce 256 is the original release in Nvidia's " GeForce" product-line. Announced on August 31, 1999 and released on October 11, 1999, the GeForce 256 improves on its predecessor ( RIVA TNT2) by increasing the number of fixed pixel pipeli ...

** GeForce 2 Series **

GeForce 3 Series The GeForce 3 series (NV20) is the third generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units (GPUs). Introduced in February 2001, it advanced the GeForce architecture by adding programmable pixel and vertex shaders, multisample anti-aliasi ...

** GeForce 4 Series **

GeForce FX Series The GeForce FX or "GeForce 5" series (codenamed NV30) is a line of graphics processing units from the manufacturer Nvidia. Overview Nvidia's GeForce FX series is the fifth generation of the GeForce line. With GeForce 3, the company introduced p ...

GeForce 6 Series The GeForce 6 series (codename NV40) is Nvidia's sixth generation of GeForce graphic processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce 6 family introduced PureVideo post-processing for video, '' SLI'' technology, and '' Shader Model 3 ...

** GeForce 7 Series ** Some

Quadro Quadro was Nvidia's brand for graphics cards intended for use in workstations running professional computer-aided design (CAD), computer-generated imagery (CGI), digital content creation (DCC) applications, scientific calculations and machine ...

3Dlabs 3Dlabs was a fabless semiconductor company. It was founded in 1994 with headquarters in San Jose, California. It originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end graphics chip technology, that was used on many of the world's leading computer g ...

Permedia2, Permedia3, and GLINT R3 *

S3 Savage Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3. Graphics Processors Savage 3D At the 1998 E3 Expo S3 introduced the first Savage product, Savage3D. Compared to its ViRGE-derived predecessor (Trio3D), Savage3D was a technol ...

Silicon Integrated Systems Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS; ) is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan. Business In the late 1990s, SiS made the decision to invest in their ow ...

(SiS)

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 ( CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab ...

and 310/325 series chips *

VIA Technologies VIA Technologies Inc. (), is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA ...

CLE266 Unichrome

References

{{Reflist, 1=2, refs= {{Citation , last = Kurshev , first = Nick , date = 2007-04-05 , title = VIDIX - VIDeo Interface for *niX , id = File vidix/vidix.txt , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{cite mailing list , url = http://archive.linuxcoding.com/video-4-linux/2001/msg03277.html , title = FC/nowiki> alternative kernel multimedia API , date = 2001-10-25 , access-date = 2010-10-29 , mailing-list = video4linux , last = Dergachev , first = Vladimir , author-link = {{cite web , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/mplayerxp/ , title = MplayerXP-mplayer with extra performance , last = Kurshev , first = Nick , year = 2010 , work = SourceForge , publisher = Geeknet , access-date = 2010-10-29 {{cite web , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/ , title = VIDeo Interface of *niX , last = Kurshev , first = Nick , year = 2010 , work = SourceForge , publisher = Geeknet , access-date = 2010-10-29 {{Citation , last = Robinson , first = Alastair , year = 2002 , title = Driver for CyberBlade/i1 - Version 0.1.4 , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Kurshev , first = Nick , year = 2002 , title = VIDIX based video driver for Mach64 and 3DRage chips , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Beregszaszi , first = Alex , title = Matrox MGA driver , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Sommer , first = Sascha , year = 2004 , title = VIDIX based video driver for NVIDIA chips , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Rullgârd , first = Mâns , year = 2002 , title = Driver for 3DLabs Permedia 2 , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Rullgârd , first = Mâns , year = 2003 , title = Driver for 3DLabs GLINT R3 and Permedia3 chips , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Kurshev , first = Nick , year = 2002 , title = VIDIX based video driver for Radeon and Rage128 chips , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Jelveh , first = Reza , year = 2004 , title = Driver for S3 Savage Series , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Page , first = Jake , year = 2003 , title = VIDIX driver for SiS 300 and 310/325 series chips , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download {{Citation , last = Lee , first = Timothy , year = 2004 , title = Driver for VIA CLE266 Unichrome - Version 0.1.0 , access-date = 2010-10-29 , url = http://sourceforge.net/projects/vidix/files/vidix/1.0.0/vidix-1.0.0.tar.bz2/download

External links

Home page of VIDIX
* Mplayerxp Device drivers Computer peripherals

History

Supported hardware

See also

References

External links